Soon after arriving home last night, I headed to the corner of my bedroom where my computer is. (If the I.R.S. is reading this, the square footage in question is my “home office.”) The green light at the base of my landline—which I maintain solely for robo-calls and my parents—was out. Hmm, must’ve not properly snapped the phone in place the day before.

No, it was securely in the holder. Then I noticed the lights on my modem (do we still call them “modems”? That seems somehow…quaint) were also out. I looked down at the power strip on the floor. The little red-light switch was out as well, and the plug was still firmly in the wall socket.

Hmmm.

Flipped on the light switch for the bulb above this… “nook,” for lack of a less silly word. Nothing.

Odd. All the other electricity in the apartment seemed to be functioning: the cable in the living room, even my state-of-the-art-for-1994 torchiere lamp in a different corner of the bedroom.

I’ll go to the fusebox, I thought. I’ll open up the little panel, one of them will be facing the wrong direction, and I’ll switch it back “on.”

All of the switches were facing the same direction.

Hmmm.

Now what do I do? I kind of need the computer from time to time. Arrgh, but I don’t want to, grrr, call a professional or anything. Don’t… care… to… rely… on… assistance… from… others…

Then a thought hit me, I know not from where. There’s that wall socket in the bathroom with the “reset” button on it. So I went into the bathroom and pressed reset. There was a second button: “Test monthly.” I had missed the last 119 tests, but there’s no time like the present. Pressed test, pressed reset again.

Went back into my bedroom. And, I wouldn’t say I have a God complex, but, you know, let there be light. The little green modem lights flickered to life. [Insert Gatsby reference here.] Even the dare-to-be-different little orange modem light. The phone, the overhead bulb, all good.

I have no idea what I did. But 10 years from now, I’ll probably do it again.

4 —— through the magic of the social network sewers, i really think i can pass along the info to Jack, and if not, my bet is that he’s an even better plumber then electrician, so he may find me on the inverse in no time; word is he seems not to mind the social network stench

Hate to barge in again. But I was at Firestone today (cars cease to perfect as we all know), and I’m in the waiting room. They have complete poisonous jelly donut for me in the magazine rack, SPIN. To make a long story short, because the whole mag was a cultural enema, they did a soundbyte for the new [Loudon Wainwright the 3rd] Box-Set.

Now I remember my brother talking about him in the 80s, and there were some songs I think I liked. The only thing I am positive of though is that in 2000-ish I bought his latest record. It had an anti-smoking song. Very good, and it dug into me, made me feel foolish (btw that’s sort of what I like in an artist, or a rephrase, pop-artist….maybe the entire so called popular arts is an insult to everyone included?).

So the point is LW123 is a CMU graduate. LW123’s new box set is intro-0ed by Judd Apatow. Totally out of my league here, but Ape strikes me as the cherished grand pappy’s son-in law kind of at the I-ndieF-ilmC-hannel.

It just seems to be a good East-West SiW sort of thing. That’s all. Carry on.